Kerala Chief Minister loves foreign trips to woo investors, but not questions in assembly

Over the different sessions of the legislative assembly, it has become a pattern for Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to ignore queries regarding his foreign trips. He broke the trend in the ongoing session. In response to KPCC president and MLA Sunny Joseph's question on September 16, the CM's reply reads, 'shall be collected and given.'

Sunny Joseph asked the CM for details of trips undertaken by the chief minister and the ministers during the previous government's tenure and the present one, the countries toured, people who accompanied the ministers, duration of the trip, objectives, amount spent on tickets, food and accommodation. 

The chief minister usually leaves the question unanswered. During the 13th session in March 2025, Sanishkumar Joseph sought details on the CM's foreign trips. On that day (March 3), the CM was supposed to answer 155 questions. Save for the query on foreign trip, he answered all questions.

Assembly replies can get updated in future. However, in the case of Pinarayi, such updation seldom happens. When K Babu raised the question in the assembly on June 10, 2024, there was no answer. Even during the tenure of the previous government, any question on a foreign trip most often evoked the same response.

In the 15th session of the assembly, then MLAs P C George and N A Nellikkunnu asked questions about the foreign trips of the chief minister as well as ministers in May 2019 and June 2019. While the reply was given for all questions raised by George, the response was 'information would be collected.' As for questions raised by  Nellikkunnu, reply to all questions was 'information would be collected'. These answers have not been updated till date. The MLAs have said that they had filed appeals with the petition committee seeking answers for their questions.

There were times when Pinarayi had answered questions on benefits of his foreign tours, especially after his 2022 visit to European countries. He had given lengthy replies on promises made by companies in Finland, Norway, and Dubai.

He has evaded the latest question on his foreign trips when both the Industries Department and Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation have failed to furnish information on investments materialised in the state following CM's visit to foreign nations. 

Response received by Onmanorama from two Norwegian companies (Tomra & HydrogenPro), which, according to the CM promised investments in Kerala, showed that the companies have not made any investments in Kerala even after three years. While one company outrightly denied having made any investments, another company sought details regarding the visit of the CM in 2022 during which the commitment to invest in Kerala was made.

The ongoing session of the assembly is the last one before the upcoming local body polls.